If there's one constant in the vast, ongoing, streaming music war, it's this fact: Spotify is the big dog. Despite competition from the Music Genome Project-powered Pandora and the playlist-centric YouTube Music, Spotify remains the king of the hill due to its large catalog, collaborative playlists, podcasts, and numerous other attractive features. Even with its recent price hike, Spotify remains a top-rated, overall Editors' Choice winner for streaming music services, along with Apple Music, LiveOne, and SiriusXM Internet Radio.
Part of Spotify's success is its ubiquity. You can access Spotify by launching the web player, by downloading the desktop apps (available for Chromebook, Linux, Mac, and Windows), or by installing one of the mobile apps (available for Android, iOS). You can also find Spotify on TVs, set-top boxes, smartwatches, and home video game consoles.
The desktop apps have an advantage over the web player and mobile apps in that you can use the former to play M4P, MP3, and MP4 audio files that are stored in your computer. This is a particularly cool feature for people who want to play all of their music streams and audio files from one central location. Unfortunately, the desktop app isn't compatible with M4A files.
Spotify has added lyrics support for both free and premium accounts on all platforms. Spotify, in collaboration with Musixmatch, delivers auto-scrolling lyrics that sync with the song as it plays, giving you convenient sing-along functionality. Previously Spotify was partnered with Genius for lyric functionality, but this feature was limited to the Android app and iOS app. This expanded lyrical sourcing is a significant service improvement.
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How Much Does Spotify Cost?
You can dive into Spotify by signing up for Spotify Free or for one of the four Spotify Premium tiers. The free version serves audio and banner ads, and lets you listen to 160Kbps streams, manage your digital music files, and connect with other people via the built-in social networking features. Sadly, Spotify's premium tiers have increased in price across the board this year, matching those of YouTube Music, which also went up in cost.
The $10.99-per-month Spotify Premium lets you hear select albums before they're released and play songs on demand. You can also cache songs for offline playback on your computer, phone, or other devices. This tier also increases audio quality to 320Kbps. Feature- and quality-wise, Premium is worth the extra moolah. That said, Spotify doesn't let you record its audio as SiriusXM Internet Radio, the Editors' Choice for streaming services focused on live content, does.
Spotify's Family Plan grants six people individual premium accounts for an incredibly wallet-friendly $16.99 per month. Spotify's take on the family plan includes several cool features, such as Family Mix (a vulgarity-free playlist for your family) and Spotify Kids (a separate service aimed at children).
If you need a Spotify plan that only covers two people, Spotify Duo is the way to go. The $14.99-per-month tier is essentially a Family Plan for a pair of people, minus Spotify Kids. It even has its own take on Family Mix: Duo Mix.
A Spotify student plan is available for $5.99 per month, but it's not your typical student plan. This one also includes an ad-supported Hulu plan (normally $7.99 per month). Spotify no longer offers Showtime as a free perk, due to Paramount+ absorbing the Showtime library. The student plan is still a good deal that is largely unmatched by other streaming music services. The closest comparison is the $16.95-per-month Apple One service bundle that includes Apple Music, Apple Arcade, and AppleTV+.
Spotify's Songs and Podcasts
Spotify's library boasts more than 100 million songs, plus audiobooks, comedy, radio dramas, podcasts, poetry readings, and speeches. It's a rich collection, and we're pleasantly surprised that it includes Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech (part of the HistorySpeaks podcast) in its entirety. In fact, Spotify has a lot of non-music extras, such as The Joe Rogan Experience and select Hulu Originals soundtracks. These extras act as a counter to LiveOne's DJs and music history channels, as well as Tidal-like, in-depth music editorials and exclusive videos. That said, Spotify doesn't have many music videos or concert videos. YouTube Music is superior in that regard.
Clicking an artist's name pulls up additional songs by the artist, and an About tab that contains an artist's biography, photos, and hyperlinks to related Spotify pages. We killed quite a few minutes in testing leaping from Alicia Keys to Isaac Hayes to Booker T. and The M.G.'s, reading the in-depth bios, and sampling tracks. However, LiveOne's DNA station does a better job of fleshing out artist profiles through the use of interviews and playing the music that influenced the artists' sound.
Spotify's Playlists and Community
Spotify's library won't let you down. We streamed the entirety of A Tribe Called Quest's We Got It From Here...Thank You 4 Your Service, Hannah Williams & The Affirmations' Late Nights & Heartbreak, and Led Zeppelin's Led Zeppelin II. Spotify has a good mix of major and indie artists, including Taylor Swift, who once had a notable falling out with Spotify over money that saw her remove her catalog from the service.
You can build playlists with any of the tracks or albums in Spotify's deep catalog. By default, Spotify streams tracks on your playlists with gapless playback. Spotify also gives you the option to crossfade songs, and even the ability to adjust the number of seconds (1-12) to fade. It's not something we often use, but DJs (or wannabe DJs) might find it appealing.
If you want to build a playlist with a friend, turn on the collaborative playlist option to let your playlist be edited by others. Group Session, a premium feature, takes that idea a step further. It lets you and other Spotify Premium subscribers listen to the same content at the same time on your own devices—and control the content playback. Group Session supports two to five people and, thankfully, you can invite friends and family to chill out by sending them a link. That prevents trolls from jumping into your sessions.
Spotify's Sound Quality
Spotify's free 160Kbps and Premium 320Kbps streams sound good. If you aren't an audiophile, you'll find the sound quality satisfactory. It's leaps and bounds better than iHeartRadio's 128Kbps streams.
Spotify has announced the development of Spotify HiFi, a feature that delivers tracks in lossless, CD-quality audio (though, not hi-res audio). Spotify HiFi will support Spotify Connect, too, so you can stream tunes to smart devices and use your phone as a remote control. Spotify hasn't announced a price for this new plan, or a launch date.
If you want better audio quality, and have a good pair of headphones, you should look into Tidal's $19.99-per-month HiFi Plus plan. With it, Tidal delivers non-compressed, 1411Kbps FLAC audio that's of a much higher fidelity than your standard audio stream. Even better, HiFi includes Tidal Masters, a music collection that offers studio-quality, high-resolution audio streams. They sound terrific. Amazon Music Unlimited, Apple Music, Primephonic, and Qobuz also offer hi-res audio.
Spotify's AI-Powered DJ
Spotify has a new, personalized listening experience for Premium users in Canada and the United States. Simply called DJ, the feature is found in a new card in your Music Feed. Tap it, and the new AI DJ delivers a personalized, curated musical selection based on your listening preferences. If you don’t jibe with the DJs offerings, simply tap the DJ button located at the screen's bottom to select a different artist, genre, or mood.
DJ works by harnessing Spotify’s own personalization technology, as well as OpenAI (the tech behind ChatGPT) to offer informative info about whatever you’re listening to. A dynamic AI voice delivers the narration, based on Xavier “X” Jernigan of The Get Up morning show fame.
Spotify's DJ works surprisingly well. The AI narration sounds a little flat at times (like it's reading a script), but it's also endearing to hear the DJ recommend music, or give you a bit of info about the next track before playing it. The inclusion of an AI-powered DJ helps close the gap in Spotify's otherwise impressive armor, giving subscribers the live, informative content the service previously lacked. That said, LiveOne still edges it out with its range of informative DJs who host particular playlists, as do the music history-filled Artist DNA stations.
Artist Radio and Recommendation System
Besides listening to singles, albums, and playlists, you can create an Artist Radio station that plays music from your favorite musicians, as well as similar-sounding musicians. We like Harlem's Artist Radio, which served up tunes from Dum Dum Girls and other indie rock notables in testing. You can, of course, like and ban songs to customize the Artist Radio experience, as you can with most music-streaming services.
Spotify builds on its cutting-edge features by revamping recommendations for audiobooks, music, and podcasts. Spotify adds personalized, curated previews of recommended audio when you peruse the mobile app's Home section. Whenever available, an animated song canvas accompanies audio previews, giving the app a dynamic, TikTok-like aesthetic. Podcast and audiobook feeds contain audio previews, as well as customized content based on your listening preferences. Followed podcasts and saved audiobooks appear at the top of their respective feeds.
We dig this stylish interface, though the animated canvases don't appear as frequently as we would like. Likewise, not all podcasts offer previews. Spotify announced that many of these new features are live now, but the rest will roll out in the coming weeks and months.
Spotify and VPNs
If you're concerned about streaming your favorite tunes over, say, a public Wi-Fi signal, you need to get yourself a VPN. A virtual private network safeguards your phone, tablet, or PC from snoopers and, depending on the location of the VPN server, may let you access music licensed to other regions. Using a VPN to get around licensing restrictions violates Spotify's terms of service, though, so tread carefully.
Spotify Is a Top-Tier Streaming Music Service
Simply put, Spotify is an excellent streaming music service that wins PCMag Editors' Choice award. It has tons of great music, exclusive tunes, and podcasts, all of which combine to make it a top pick for streaming music and more pop culture-related content. If you prefer live performances, check out LiveOne, which is an Editors' Choice selection for concerts. If you dig his-res audio and first dibs on concert tickets, Tidal—another Editors' Choice pick—is the way to go.
Chance Townsend contributed to this review.
Spotify leads the streaming music pack with its deep music well, countless podcasts, early album access, collaborative playlists, and AI-powered curation.
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